


Books are the Gateway to Imagination

by Llama1412



Series: Siblings 'verse [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-13
Updated: 2010-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23484778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: A knight was not allowed to like books.
Series: Siblings 'verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689595
Kudos: 10





	Books are the Gateway to Imagination

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Livejournal in 2010. Posted unedited.

No one considered Arthur the scholarly type. After all, what were books worth? A knight should be strong and agile. Book smarts were no good to anyone on the battlefield. As a prince, he had learned advisers to turn to if such knowledge should ever be needed.

From the start, his father had discouraged him from reading. An education was essential – the best tutors in the realm had been brought in to teach him – but he wasn't supposed to _like_ it. A scholar was wimpy and weak, good only for hiding behind books when tragedy struck. A knight could not be a scholar. It simply wasn't allowed.

So when Arthur was caught perusing a book of Roman love poetry as a child, the book was torn from his grasp, burned to the protests of the Court Genealogist, and Arthur was lectured endlessly.

"A knight cannot like books. You must be the best knight in the realm. If I find you indulging in such pointless drivel again, I'll have you flogged."

Arthur had tried to obey his father, he really had. But he'd heard Geoffrey and Gaius talking about the wonders of books, the knowledge that they could bestow, and he craved it.

He knew it was stupid. He knew he was risking a lot just for the words of people long since passed. It didn't stop him.

For the next nine years, his biggest secret was the ever-changing stash of books Geoffrey provided him. Later, it would be trumped by larger realizations, worse transgressions, but for now, the dark hours of the night found Arthur curled up with a candle in the corner of his chambers, reading about the mother goddesses and the warrior kings they birthed and for those hours, Arthur could be part of another world where mothers never left their sons.


End file.
